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Respectable Groove

JazzHolywell Music Room, Oxford

By Alyn Shipton

December 9 2003, 12:00am, The Times

QUIETNESS, gentleness and restraint are qualities largely absent from the contemporary jazz scene. They are, however, the foundation of Respectable Groove, the early-music-meets-jazz crossover quartet that has become a favourite on Radio 3’s In Tune, and at the smaller, more acoustically intimate concert halls around the country.

At the heart of the group is the interplay between Evelyn Nallen’s array of recorders and David Gordon’s harpsichord. Just occasionally this leads to a musical clash of temperament, and one A-minor Italian dance from the 15th century threw up a scale in which keyboard and recorder jarred unpleasantly. But this was a rare moment of disharmony.

The centrepiece of the band’s Oxford Contemporary Music event was the premiere of Dido’s Got the Blues, a reworking of Purcell’s…

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